Window tracery in Silesia from the 15th to the half of the 16th century

Hanna Golasz-Szołomicka

doi:10.5277/arc150401

Abstract

The article presents Silesian traceries which have survived in ten churches created from the beginning of the 15th to mid-16th and also in chapels of churches built earlier. With regard to their composition they may be divided into a central one or several levels. Such forms as circles, pointed arches, semicircular arches, multi-foils and mouchettes were used as in former periods. New compositions were formed from these elements, often being manifold of earlier ones, because they were created for wide quadripartite, sexpartite, and octopartite windows. The new arrangement appeared in the central composition of the window in St Peter and Paul Church in Legnica modeled on the north rosette in the Chartres Cathedral. Rotating mouchettes appeared seldom because they were used in new compositions. In a few windows the whole window-head were filled with identical, small motives. There appeared curvilinear forms and compositions. Traceries have an English origin in which dense fluting is connected, in the upper part, by individual pointed arches and with fluting intersecting in the area below the arch. Silesian builders were familiar with traceries used in the West and they created their own new compositions with these elements.

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